“Why are you thinking you are a contralto or mezzo soprano,” Moore remembers her voice teacher asking her. “You are a lyric, full-out soprano.”

Moore, who comes from a family immersed in music, had been performing since she was a child. She knew she was an alto — even a second alto, the lowest alto of all.

“I immediately said, ‘That’s the end of this lesson,’ ” Moore said. “And I left and went back to my dorm room. I didn’t want any more lessons after that because I didn’t want to be a soprano.”

It was not just that the teacher had challenged her identity; Moore had certain preconceptions about sopranos that didn’t apply to her.

“I felt sopranos were whiny. ... They were always whining about something. ‘Oh God, oh God; woe is me, woe is me.’ But the mezzos, they had (substance); they had fire about them. They were the bad (rhymes with witches) and sopranos seemed like weak little things.”

It took Moore a week and a half to return to her voice lessons at University of North Texas and longer than that to accept her soprano status. But in roles like Verdi’s “Aida,” which she sang at the Metropolitan Opera last year and will sing with the San Diego in a Zandra Rhodes-designed production opening Saturday at the Civic Theatre, she’s found strong soprano characters she can relate to.

“When I got heavier into doing my repertoire, which is more Verdi, I saw that sopranos in fact do have (substance),” she said. “They’ve got the fire. Once I got rid of my ignorance about sopranos, I was ready to accept what I am.”

All that jazz

Sopranos may be the most misunderstood voice type, as there are sopranos and there are sopranos: from coloratura sopranos, who have the lightest and the highest voices and often end up dead and/or victimized by the opera’s end, to dramatic sopranos, who have the most weighty voices (and although they are typically also dead at the opera’s conclusion, at least it’s on their terms). Then there are the soprano voice types in between: soubrettes, spinto sopranos and lyric sopranos (which is where Moore fits in).

Some sopranos may tend to confuse their high-drama roles with their lives, but Moore sees fewer and fewer divas and prima donnas, especially among American singers. And she’s dedicated to leaving the drama on the stage.

“Some companies still want the diva, and I can kind of understand why they are attracted to that,” Moore said. “The women who are that way, they give off this kind of ethereal air.

“But that’s not really my personality. I’m from Houston, North Houston. We’re just down-home chicks. We’re just very playful, laid back, calm about things. If a hair is out of place, it’s all right; if the water’s not working, or I don’t get my Caesar dressing (she said, looking at the salad the opera company had brought her during a lunch break), I’ll live.”

The fact that Moore is the middle child in a family of five that made music together may help explain her easygoing temperament. Although she sang classical music in school choirs, she primarily sang jazz throughout high school and entered college as a jazz major.

But not for long.

One of her teachers soon told her she had a voice well -suited for opera and convinced her to join the opera chorus.

It proved to be a revelation.

“I felt something,” Moore said. “Something different than I felt doing jazz. It really spoke to me and I wanted to do more. I wanted to be more than a chorus member. I wanted to be the lead. I was like, ‘I think I could do this. I want to be these characters, bring them to life and sing in these different languages. I really want to give it a shot.’ ”

Natural singing

She found a sympathetic voice teacher at North Texas in (the late) Pattye Johnstone, and once she got over the shock of being a soprano, she found that singing opera came naturally, even if she had to resist trying to imitate some of her role models.

“When I first started out, I was really big on listening to lots of recordings,” Moore said. “I mean I idolized Renata Tebaldil; she was my favorite. And Rosa Ponselle, Leontyne Price. ... I would listen to these chicks all the time.

“So the hard part was when I’d get into my lessons and she’d say, ‘Don’t manipulate it and make it sound like someone else. I want to hear the way you sound. I want your voice; make a normal production, open up, support, give a natural sound.’ She was all about natural, natural, natural singing.”

When Moore left Houston at Johnstone’s urging, she auditioned with numerous teachers and coaches before finding a home with the highly regarded Bill Schuman at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, where she now lives.

“I’ve really only had two voice teachers my whole life and this is really a very good thing,” she said. “Because I have some friends who have had 40 voice teachers, and the result is crazy technique. You can lose your way when you get all these opinions from a million different people about how you should be singing.

“It’s detrimental.”

Schuman kept her on the same natural path that Johnstone had so carefully nurtured, and although she sang some lighter repertoire at first, no matter how much she wanted to sing Puccini, her voice took her to Verdi.

She sang her first full scale production of “Aida” in 2010 in Hamburg, where the San Diego Opera’s Ian Campbell heard her and immediately engaged her for his 2013 “Aida.” The Dallas Opera’s Jonathan Pell (now the former director) did the same, signing her for his company’s 2012 season-opening production of “Aida.”

“You really have to have some serious vision and trust to know that a singer who has just started singing a role is going to continue to be doing it and is actually going to be doing it well by the time your production comes up,” said Moore. “So I really admire them for being able to do that.”

Aida has become her signature role (Saturday will be her 44th performance in the title role), and she’s reached the point where she’s turning down productions of “Aida,” not only because she’s branching out to other roles, but she doesn’t want to overtax her voice.”

“Saying no could be detrimental as far as being at the very top of the game, but I don’t care,” Moore said. “Because I don’t really do it to be a star. I do it because I love singing.”

Even if that means being a soprano.

Voice lessons: Singers and the art of singing

If you really want to hear “The Voice,” don’t bother watching TV. It’s opera seaso, and the San Diego Opera is bringing in more than a dozen singers whose pipes will blow away anything you’ve seen on the tube.

This year, we’re going to focus on four of them, representing each voice type (soprano, mezzo-soprano/alto, tenor and bass), and talk to them about their craft.